THIS week's edition of You Couldn't Make It Up comes courtesy of Virgin Trains, whose services on the Manchester-Birmingham New Street-Euston run are becoming increasingly over-crowded.

So they are considering steep increases in fares to deter potential passengers and so prevent the crush in the corridors from reaching dangerous levels.

This is an unusually novel approach to running a business which could well be adapted for other forms of travel.

Perhaps Heathrow's Terminal 5 might sort out its inability to handle baggage by insisting that passengers bring no luggage with them.

Or Birmingham International Airport might increase its rip off pick up/drop off parking charge to £10 for ten minutes.

Or Travel West Midlands, as well as refusing to give change, might ban the use of season tickets as well.

This should cut down the demand for their operations which would be able to run much more smoothly without the inconvenience of dealing with the hoi polloi.

The Virgin shambles follows two years of unsuccessful negotiations with the supine Department of Transport about funding the promise of adding two extra carriages to each of its nine-carriage Pendolino trains from next year.

Typically, neither was prepared to pay so the project has been put off to April 2012 and the unhappy traveller suffers yet again.

Virgin Trains makes a mint out of its West Coast Main Line franchise on which thousands of passengers already have to stand each day. Numbers have increased from 15 million in 2004 to 21 million last year.

On current trends the 52 Pendolinos will carry 34 million passengers by 2012, although many of these may have to cling on to the roof.

Surely Virgin won't be allowed to get away with jacking up fares to curb the demand for its train services by a government exhorting us to place our carbon footprint on public transport? I wouldn't bet on it.

Like other forms of travel, going by train is not a pleasant experience.

Official figures show that 90 per cent of trains run on time. Since these official figures are produced by a government agency, they are not only highly suspect but a damned lie.

What is so hard to grasp about the concept of being on time?

Well the Office of Rail Regulation can't understand it because they persist with the fiction that a train that is up to 9 minutes and 59 seconds late is officially on time.

Strip out the trains that are allegedly on time, but actually late and the punctuality record slumps to around 70 per cent.

It would make Thomas the Tank Engine turn in his grave.

* You can alert David to local council shenanigans by emailing him at Davidbell332@tiscali.co.uk